Upgrade - 29: Velcro Ball

Episode Date: March 30, 2015

Live from the Úll conference in Ireland, Jason and Myke discuss 'Becoming Steve Jobs', and how this book addresses Apple in the early days, the value of being able to meet people in person and finally address whether Myke Was Right.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 29 this week's show which is coming to you live from ireland is sponsored by lynda.com where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts mail route secure hosted email service for protection from viruses and spam is sponsored by lynda.com where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts mail route secure hosted email service for protection from viruses and spam and bushel a cloud-based mobile device management solution for the mac iphone and the ipad my name is mike hurley and i'm joined as always by the king of the emerald isle mr jason snell hi mike we are Mr. Jason Snow. Ireland now. Yep. How about that? I don't know what my family looks like anymore. No. Yeah, no, we are safely ensconced in a beautiful hotel for the All Conference. I mean, you were here this week. You're doing some exciting things.

And All is a great little conference, and it's something that people should check out. Yeah. They haven't already. And also keep your eye. There's some interesting stuff happening this week that people may be able to view no matter where you are. So that's fun. But yeah, so we are both now here. We took a lovely train yesterday, which brought us down to Killarney from Dublin.

From Dublin, right. They chartered an UL train. It actually said on the board UL, private charter. And if that train had wrecked, half of the podcasts in the Apple sphere would have been over. Because I was sitting with Marco and Tiffany Arment, and you were just down the aisle a bit. And it was all just Apple people. Renee. Renee and Serenity and Georgia from iMore were all there.

I got to meet George's husband, who was exactly as awesome as I would have expected him to be. Nice guy. Yeah, it was a great trip down on the train. And although we were all sort of zombies, because we're all tired and traveling from far off places. Yeah, some people were just like, they'd arrived in Ireland and just went straight to the train. Went to the train station. At least me and you, we'd stayed over, I guess, which made it a lot easier. Yeah, so it was good.

And I think that, not to do too much of our travelogue and make people feel bad for not traveling, but I think one of the themes that I've experienced the last week and a half is meeting people in person. I think at this conference, we did our meetup last week. Which went fantastically. Thank you to everyone that came. And I think at this conference, we did our meetup last week. Which went fantastically. Thank you to everyone that came. Yes. I can't believe that was only a week ago, though. I know, a week ago today.

Yeah. It's hard to believe. We recorded last week's episode, and then we went to the big chill house in London. And, you know, you do something like that, and you hope that it's not, that we don't outnumber the people who come to see us. Right. It's like us and our friends. And then like two people who are podcast listeners. And somebody told me,

and I can't verify this, but somebody told me that at some point they counted 65 people in that room. That's how many I guess I would have estimated. Cause we, I picked, I picked a specific venue because I felt that it would fit people in in because i've been there before and i knew that it had some like rooms to it so if we started to get a bit of an unruly group going on which we did we were able to go away and not bother the rest of the yeah we were blocking the entire bar

and then we went upstairs and and essentially it was just us up there. And there were a lot of us. So that was amazing, and it was just great to meet those people. It says something about the value of meeting people face-to-face. It says something about the community that I think that something like podcasting can generate. I think that something like podcasting can generate. One of my good friends is Simon Jerry, who is the publisher at IDG UK. And I stayed with him and his family when I was in London. And he and Karen, who's the editor of Macworld UK, came to the meetup.

And they were, I think, quite surprised by the numbers because they're not podcast people. And so it was good to see it through their eyes, too, and see just how amazing it is and how much people love listening to podcasts. And we have that same thing when we meet people who do podcasts that we love. It's cool. It's cool to see them in person and get the enthusiasm and, and feel from, you know, from other people, like how much they enjoy listening to what we do.

But, you know, also it was like a meeting of the tribe. I felt like it's like, these are, these are our people. It was really nice to just chat with all of them. And,

and for me, I was bouncing between people talking about like star Wars and Dr. Who and things from the incomparable. And then people talking about Apple stuff for upgrade and six colors and clockwise so that was pretty that was a lot of fun too that their interests were really diverse so it was it was a great night and they kept bringing us drinks mike yeah i made the good mistake of on analog talking about my favorite bourbons and then they just kept appearing in my hands. People just kept bringing me glasses of Maker's Mark. I thought you were doing okay with the beer,

and then I saw you with whiskey in your hand, and I thought, oh no. It was fun. It was really... It's like this sort of thing, and the reason that I wanted us to talk about this today was because one of the ongoing themes we've had in this show is that we're both going through changes in our lives that are related to our work.

Right. One of the big things for me is the detachment from people on a day-to-day basis. When I used to work in an office, whether I wanted to speak to people or whatever, there was always people around. Right. And I'm learning now the value in making sure I get out to meet people in these sort of environments so i think it's interesting for anybody that likes this stuff or works on their own or whatever to go to these types of things like meetups and conferences and stuff because it really helps just give you the human interaction that we kind of we all need yeah and and something like slack

and skype that they can they can do a lot it can go a long way but there's that little extra part of it that that meeting like me and you hanging out in person yeah adds that little bit more that we can't get from just talking on skype yeah last night um after dinner we were hanging out with a bunch of other people in the bar talking and and uh you know drinking various things i was having some guinness We have an ask upgrade about that later, I think. And it was just, I was sitting there thinking, you know, we haven't spent a lot of time together in person and it's a, it's, it's good. It's, it's a different thing. And we, and we haven't spent any time together since we started doing this show. And so that it's been really good for that, that, that it's just, it's, it's like a little host bonding time and it's been really good for that. It's like a little host bonding time, and it's good,

and it does remind me as well that even though I do get out of my house and see other parents when I'm picking my kids up from school and we try to have people over for dinner sometimes, it does remind me that I do need to make that extra effort to see people because it's another thing, and it can't entirely be replaced by a slack chat room or a or a google hangout it's like one of those things where where like i'm working really hard on something and my girlfriend's like you haven't left the house for two days like maybe you should just leave it's like i'm working hard it's like you're

in a big uh plastic bubble with uh inquisitive on hard. It's like you're in a big plastic bubble with Inquisitive on the label. Yeah, that's my bubble. He's inside the bubble now. Let him out. He's inquiring. Leave him alone. Let him out.

Before we lose all our listeners through to people just not wanting to hear about our escapades, should we take a break? Hashtag relay your feels. Yeah. And let Casey deal with it. That is actually one of the subjects of Aminal this week was the meetup because Casey was fascinated. That's actually, if you haven't listened to Analog before, I suggest this week's episode because there's also, I get really, really angry about something.

Oh. That I want to get off my chest and I think it's really interesting. All right. So there's some follow out of a sort. Check that out. It's a good episode actually. Episode number 33, but it's really interesting. All right. There's some follow-out of a sort. Check that out. It's a good episode, actually. Episode number 33, but it's in our show notes. Mr. Jason Snell, where can people find the show notes for Upgrade?

It's at relay.fm slash upgrade slash 20. I have to scroll up. Oh, no, my internet. 29. Perfect. Or in your podcast app that you're listening to right now because they're probably in there should we take a quick break i think that's a good idea this week's episode is brought to you by our friends over at lynda.com they are the online learning platform with

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At one point, you punched the air with your fist while you were reading. That was impressive. It is funny because as we were going into that and we had a little back and forth there, and that's actually something that we can't really do because of the distance between England and California, the latency in Skype. We can't do that quick. You kind of have to give everything a few seconds to land because of the distance between England and California, the latency in Skype. We can't do that quick. You kind of have to give everything a few seconds to land because of that. So that's another fun thing.

The speed of light conspires against us there, Mike. That is the main problem me and you have with the show. The latency is really, really high. We're going to hear now, it's like that's not the main problem. You have many more. So many more. Am I right? Is Mike right?

How do you feel about the 6 Plus now? Well, you've been very confident online about being right about the 6 Plus. And so when I was flying over here from Glasgow, because I went from London, I took the train up to Glasgow, stayed there for a few days, got to see all things Scottish, had a truly Scottish meal, which was a curry, which was actually great. It was my first curry. My wife is very excited that she can take me to Indian food now that I've approved of some Indian food, at least in the Scottish fashion. Can you get me some good Scottish Indian food? That's what I need now. you get me some good Scottish Indian food. That's what I need now. Um, but, and then,

so we flew down, uh, from, from Glasgow and I wanted to listen to music on the plane while I was reading, cause I was reading that, that, uh, new Steve jobs book. And I realized all my music was on my iPhone six that I, uh, I've, I've brought with me, but it's just been turned off. So I, I, it's an airplane mode. I turned it on and I was listening to music. The moment that I pulled it out and I held it in my hand, I thought, oh, this is the moment of truth for is Mike right or not. And I have to say, I felt this just sort of like sigh of relief about it because I still feel more comfortable with the 6. I like the 6 Plus. I don't think I ever hated it. I feel like maybe it's just not for me that I like the six plus. I don't think I ever hated it. I feel like maybe it's, maybe it's just not for me that I like the smaller size.

It is, you know, you can learn the tricks. You were talking about this last night. You can learn the tricks to, to sort of moving it around, but there is sort of a dexterity that you need to become practiced with to flip that, you know,

hold it and flip it around in certain ways to reach other parts of the screen. And I can appreciate learning that. And I have been learning some of that. But I don't think it's for me. I am seeing more of the benefits about it. So this is where I will say that Mike was right, is traveling. One of the reasons I brought it was the big battery. And I thought if I'm out and about somewhere traveling, I don't want to run out of my battery because then I'm not going to know where I am and not be able to get home. And that's been great. That battery is amazing.

It is truly amazing. So I have positive feelings about it. But unless it changes in the next few days, my feeling is that I would not get a 6 Plus or its successor as my next phone. But my wife, I think, is intrigued by it because she keeps her phone in her purse and she doesn't do a lot of wandering around with the one-handed phone thing. And she likes the bigger screen. So someone in my family may get a Plus in the end. Well, that one.

Yeah, but I don't know that one yeah but i don't think i don't think that will be me so i found really interesting at dinner last night the six plus became a topic of conversation it did because it and that was that was we should say our dinner table it was you and me and georgia and and renee and serenity and marco and tiff and james thompson and there were a couple other people there tiff's or uh georgia's husband and and i i the other people were down at the other end of the table and i'm not sure who they were but it was a crazy table yeah it was great and the six plus came up yeah because georgia has this incredible case which has a like a little strap on the back so she holds it she's able to put her fingers into the strap.

So she can more confidently reach around the screen because it's not. Right. It's an elastic strap that's basically like a sticker. So you could put it on any case or even on the phone itself. And it's this little elastic hand strap. Have you ever played, there is like a game, like a garden game, where you have like a big circle of Velcro. Oh, yeah.

It reminded me of that, and you throw the ball and you catch it. I can't remember what it's called. But that's what it reminded me of, because you can just, you have it attached to your hand, and everyone on the table is like, whoa, what is this magic? But I find it so interesting that this is coming up now. Like the Six Plus is back into all the podcasts that we listen to, everyone's talking about it

again, it's because people are travelling so it's the reason that the 6 Plus always made sense for me was the amount of commuting that I did and it still makes sense to me because when I do leave the house like you're gone a long time

I'm gone most of the day so okay and that you know and i like to be able to use my phone for the whole day and i'm a really heavy iphone user like i'm very very frequently doing more than one thing like i'm listening to a podcast and playing a game or listening to music and reading twitter and flying around and doing this like i really push it so that that's why the battery makes so much sense and the screen makes so much sense. Have you done any reading on it? Because you said you were reading on the Kindle.

Yeah, I was just reading on the Kindle. I mean, I've done a lot of using Twitter, just reading web articles and Nuzzle and using things that Nuzzle finds for me. So I'm reading articles, just not like a book. I'm not using it for that. Because I think the other part of it, what will be interesting to see is when the Apple Watch comes out,

then will it change even more opinions on how people use the 6 Plus. Right, because if you're using your phone less and it's staying in your pocket more, then the Apple Watch is an interesting justification for the 6 Plus because you've got your quick interactions on the small device and then when you really want to, oh, here it comes, here comes the big device, because now you're serious about something.

Because it makes sense to me from a logical perspective. If you have to have your phone in your hand less, you may as well have, when you do have it, you have the maximum amount of everything you can have. That makes sense to me. Because if I'm using my watch to do a lot of interaction, because that's how I expect, in theory, it would be, the majority of quick interactions, pulling out, checking something, responding to a message, should all be going on here now on the watch. Right. Agreed.

So then, in that case, it won't be such a problem that this isn't really a one-handed device. He said here, by the way, and tapped his wrist. And then tapped my pocket. And then tapped his pocket, which is really good for me because I'm here, but bad for podcasting. But that's what happens. This is why I don't like to do videos. People say, why don't you do video when you record?

Because it changes things. Because then, this happens to me when I'm on Leo Laporte's shows all the time, is that I'm very well aware that they have an audio component and people can just listen to the audio. But they will always, and you find yourself doing it too, reference things that are visual. Like, oh, you know, that's what it looks like. And people listening to audio have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm like, yeah, Jason. Yeah, right there. I see. That's your pocket. Good. Good. Good. I also thought it was funny that Georgia's thing was, it's all in the eye of the beholder, because a lot of people are like, oh, that's so cool. And I sat there thinking, see, that's the problem with the 6 Plus, is people are excited about sticking an elastic hand strap on the back like you can going like you can use it for uh to to catch a ball with velcro um that that i think that's points out that it's flawed but also shows you uh the enthusiasm people have for using it despite the fact that it's so huge because they get so much else out

of it so it's both of those things at once someone did say something to me recently on twitter which i found really interesting is that using the Apple Watch is a two-handed device. Yeah, because it's on your wrist and then you have to touch it with your other hand. So it's like the convenience is you can look at things, but interaction will always be two-handed.

Right, although you're not holding it anything in either hand, but yeah, you always have to have the pointer and the... unless you are a contortionist you strap it to your shoulder yeah so you could just poke your shoulder but like that that that was an interesting thing to me but i think the majority of the benefit is just knowing what that vibration in my pocket was about which is why i love the pebble i think it's why you love the pebble as well as it's and that's why for some people the Peppermint works.

Or missing the vibration because it's not in your pocket. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, as we're getting closer and closer, I am becoming more and more excited for the Apple Watch. And I found that the more that we talk about it, the more people talk about it, the more excited we all get with the possibility of it.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's got the chance it's got the the possibility to be really great um whether well i mean it's going to be a first generation product and uh and early software so i suspect that apple will learn a lot um so it'll be interesting to see how fully formed it is in the first go and what it changes over time. But it's got the potential to be really great, I think. It's so interesting to me that we could be in a situation where these devices that we're so used to using, we're now going to use in a completely different way. Yeah. Our phones are going to – we're going to – like I am so tied to this and this screen doing things on it all the time.

You touched his pocket again. Yeah, I did it. I can't help it. That it's – I'm just really interested to think that that's going to shift. Well, right now it's 100% of our walking around connecting to the internet. It's a little bit like when we said phones and tablets are going to change how we use computers because we won't need the computers for everything anymore. This has the potential to do that with our smartphones where they're not going to go away,

but they become the hub of other devices that are using its internet connection even, but are, are how we interact. If you could shave off a third of your interactions with your phone and put them on the watch and, and that made them faster and simpler, um, that could be great. But that is, that is changing how you use your phone because now you're not using your phone for those purposes. And that's really interesting. Before the original iPhone came out, and when we knew what it could do and leading up to it,

I spent a lot of time thinking about, in my life, what are the things that I'm doing that I could do with the iPhone. I see you sit and think, oh, this is good. But imagine if I had the iPhone for this. And I'm now doing that with the watch. Like we went to dinner and I was walking from my hotel. It's about a half hour walk. I didn't know the route.

So I was keeping my phone in my jacket pocket so I could take it out. I could keep taking it out and looking. And I was thinking if I had it on the watch for the locations oh yeah walking stuff is so much easier and plus i was in a it was perfectly nice area but it's an area i didn't know so i didn't want to keep taking my phone i know yeah me too because i don't i i just don't know where i'm walking i don't know if i'm walking for a good part of dublin or a bad part of dublin right and i didn't want to keep having to do that. So able to look at my watch would be nicer.

And I have seen people like, well, you're now wearing this product, showing the world. That is a definite thing. And I wonder what that will be like. Because I know whenever I've got, like when I got the iPhone for the first time or got an iPad for the first time, there is that like self, like I'm very conscious about the fact that I have this device, that when people see it, they'll be like, oh, he's got the new Apple thing. But now it's like you won't be able to miss the watch because it'll be in front of everyone

because it's attached to your body. Then again, it's a watch, and people wear watches. So there's that, which is it's not a new... It's a new product, but it's in an old class. So you'll have to pay closer attention to what it is. And so at that point, it's like, yes, if a watch thief is looking for the expensive watches and then trying to rip them off your wrist, that they'll notice that you have an Apple Watch. But a lot of people may just not even notice because it's just a watch.

So before we move on, because I want to talk about Steve Jobs' book, because you mentioned that, there was one thing, you said you listen to music when you read. Yes. Do you listen to music with lyrics? Yes.

Interesting. So, and I do this when I work too, when I write. And we were talking about this, you get a bunch of writers and programmers together and this always comes up. Marco and I were talking about this, you get a bunch of writers and programmers together and this always comes up. Marco and I were talking about listening to music versus listening to podcasts and audiobooks and how Tiff can listen to audiobooks and podcasts while she's working because she's editing photos. And I think there's truth in saying that they're using visual parts of your brain. And your speech centers and your language centers are a different part of your brain.

And that's when things get complicated is when you have a collision. And so everybody – I know people who can't listen to music when they're writing or reading. I know people who can't listen to music when they're writing or reading. I know people who can't listen to music with lyrics. For me, and I'm sure I've said this before somewhere, what I need is to listen to things I know by heart. Right. Or things without lyrics is fine, too. But what I can't do is download the new Death Cab for Cutie album.

See, I'm being timely with the kids. Federico will be happy. I can't download that album and just start listening to it as I'm writing because I will be distracted by the songs. But once I know them, they fade into the background. And it's good energy. And I know what all the songs are. And I know how they feel. But I'm not tuned into the detail anymore.

And that makes the difference for me. So yes, I put on a playlist. And if it's not working for me, I'll put on a different playlist. Because it needs to sort of fit my mood, too. But I have no problem with the words thing. And I know some people, that bothers them, but I can write with music. In fact, I mean, I wrote, I wrote my, um, that first NaNoWriMo novel that I did, you know, I wrote a hundred thousand words with nothing but image and heap and say anything on repeat. So if I was feeling in one mood, it would be the image and heap

electronic stuff. And if I was feeling in another mood, it was the image and heap electronic stuff and if i was feeling in another mood it was the punk rock and that was that i wrote the whole book that way and that's all music with with lyrics but i knew it by heart and it was more about the mood what about you i can listen to music with lyrics um when i when i write so when i write scripts and stuff but i tend to listen to things that pump me up to keep the energy going so that tends to be like chiptune music so they are a sponsor

but Brave Wave are a great little record label that they've created a few albums that are like this they work with video game composers and that's the you're behind the app theme yeah they created the music as well but their stuff, their stuff, it's like, it's really fast paced and like upbeat and that helps me go through stuff. But if that goes to what I was saying about the mood too, is that, is that I can't just

put on anything. Sometimes I, I, uh, you know, a morning will come and I'll have some sort of nice, friendly, smooth, you know, easy pop stuff. And I'll think to myself, no, I'm not in that. I'm in a blacker mood than that. And I'll put on like my Husker Doo Bob Mould playlist, which is all just sort of like loud guitars and shouting. It's like, yes, that's what I need now. I need the loud guitars and the shouting this morning. I'll play, there's a song called Something I i learned today by husker do which is a that's yeah if i want to get up in the morning and like be energetic and also angry

the the catharsis that that song and songs like that provide is fan i mean that's that's music is kind of a drug in that way it's like it's a mood mood enhancer and i i definitely use it that way i did get to the point when i was in my old job that i could listen to podcasts whilst writing a little bit wow because it was like out of necessity i really wanted to listen to podcasts so i could do like basic copywriting and like just responding to emails and stuff when listening that but thus proving that marketing does not activate any of the language centers of your brain. On that note.

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no one can see that. But I was agreeing with you. Yes, that's a good feature. The reinforcement. Yeah, punch the air. Bushel! So let's talk about Steve Jobs' book. How far... So this is Becoming I'm agreeing with you. Yes, that's a good feature. I like the reinforcement. Yeah, punch the air. Bonjour! So let's talk about the Steve Jobs book. How far... So this is Becoming Steve Jobs. Yeah.

Which is this new book written by... Brent Schlender and Rick Tettley? Yeah. Tettley? I don't know. Tettley. There are a couple of business writers, I think, who have worked for Forbes and all of them. Fast Company.

Fast Company. Yeah, those sort of companies. See, I said Fast Company like that. I didn't and Fast Company and those sort of companies see I said Fast Company like that I didn't say Fast Company no Fast yes

Mike is that's a whole other topic Mike is gradually he's floating over the Atlantic somewhere gradually becoming more American we're ruining Mike or improving me

it depends where you come from I also would recommend that people listen to the the podcast that John Gruber moderated with them at the Apple Store. Yeah, in the style of your podcast at the Apple Store, Apple is doing this more where they're creating these podcasts for Apple in-store events. And there's a video and audio version of John Gruber interviewing the authors on stage at the Apple Store. Which is really good.

And it adds a little bit of insight into the book and our friend john who can't be here with us because of his medical reasons he can take the train to new york so that it's it's good to see it was good to see him and we miss him here so you're about halfway through yeah i would say that i'm i'm i'm almost at 50 i'm listening to the audio book and i'm'm about halfway through as well. Yay, half-read books. Yay. But I still feel like there's enough in this point to talk about. Well, we've got him through Next and the release of Toy Story. Yeah, that's where I am at.

And it's just the, you know, we're at the point now where Apple, I'm reading the part where Apple is looking for a replacement operating system because Copeland and all their other attempts have failed. And the way they portray it is that Windows 95 has upped the game and Apple is far behind. I think that maybe overstates it a little bit, but I remember that era i was we reached the point where i was working at a mac magazine so i remember this era really well so it's kind of fun it's like oh now we're up to now we're up to the point where i was there for this stuff uh when apple was desperately looking for a new operating system so we're going to talk a little bit about the book and our opinions and

feelings on it like you just mentioned if you haven't read it it's fine like we're just talking about what there's no spoiler alert yeah steve jobs sells next to apple comes back to apple and becomes the ceo because i know that i i was thinking oh i don't want to have any kind of anything spoiled but i think i think i mean without knowing i think a lot of the maybe more interesting tidbits like this will be later in the book, if there are any. Because this stuff, it's like, it's effectively ancient well-known history. Like everything that's in here so far that I've read, it's just a retelling of a story that I know. But the difference is, because I kind of, with the Isaacson book, I only got about two thirds through and I just couldn't continue. book i only got about two-thirds through and i just couldn't continue so and so it's effectively the same amount of story but this book tells the story in an interesting and compelling way i find

i agree i i think the isaacson book gets weighted down it's bloated i think he felt like he had to get everything out there because he he felt like he was writing the definitive book. And I think, ironically, that it is one of the reasons why it's not the definitive book. And famously, of course, John Syracuse wrote about this a lot and spoke about it a lot on Hypercritical. But yeah, my takeaway for the Steve Jobs book was it's... My takeaway for the Steve Jobs book was it's – the Isaacson book was that it was a good book to use as reference for the definitive Steve Jobs book that will be written in 20 years, not the definitive Steve Jobs book. But I think Isaacson book exists to be able to know that that's out in the world and that they don't have to do everything, but they can tell the story the way they want to tell it.

Because the benefit that they have, that they seem to have that maybe other people don't, is I think it's Brent, I believe that it's Brent Schindler, Schindler? Schlender. Schlender, who has all the tapes right yeah well he's got the history of interviews is and it's that's why it's written in first person with him as the eye

is because he um he had the relationship with steve jobs yep so there is like this it's interesting to hear them talk about the process of the book in the podcast that they did because it seems like it was just a case of we started writing an article and then it was like i want to just keep going because there's so much here because he had all these tapes that that hadn't been used and there's one thing that they talk about which i found was interesting i think it was either i think gruber asked him like do you feel comfortable about publishing things that are off the record now like is there a statute of limitations and schlender schlender was like he's like a german slender yeah it's like he said like i don't feel like i have published anything that is not you know that is that is wrong now like there are things that you know we spoke about that i wouldn't have published

then but it's been so long yeah it doesn't affect anything, but now it's interesting information to have. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a sense when you're talking about Steve Jobs and Apple, that this is history and you don't want the information you've got to be lost. You don't want, at some point people should talk about what happened because we should know what happened and not just let the muddy accounts of the day be the thing that stands forever about you know who did what and how did this all this period of technology history happen so one of the things i'm taking away from the book and i don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing for the book existing in history compared to the isaacson book there is an emotional connection

that i feel when reading this book that these guys had for steve and it might be partly because it's in the first person which is a really interesting way of telling the story but like the isaacson book feels more like he had an opinion that you could feel but he was at least attempting to be like this is what happened these are the facts right but i feel like in this book the voice in the book because it's like a combination of the two of them has an emotional connection because they explain they try to explain away some of steve's emotions this this is a book with a strong point of view about the the the character arc if you will of steve jobs's life yeah this is a book that believes, you know, not like, well, here are the facts. Isn't he an interesting set of contradictions?

But he was a genius, but he was a jerk. And, you know, that's very much, I think, what the Isaacson book does. And this book is like, no, here's what we think this is, which is he was a very young executive. He never had a good mentor and was too full of himself and didn't have anybody to mentor him. And therefore, all his worst qualities were enhanced, were magnified. And then through chance with Pixar, he finally found people whose behavior he could model who were so talented that he couldn and Catmull worked at Pixar, where he was more hands-off because he wasn't in the creative process. He was just the owner of the company. That when he returned to Apple, he had spent, and by dealing with Disney, I suppose,

too, when they started working there, although with Jeffrey Katzenberg, that was kind of a fraught relationship. But these are the lessons that led Steve Jobs to be a different guy when he came back to Apple. And although he had a lot of the same questionable attributes, they were muted, they were mellowed. He had finally learned the things that, imagine if he had learned them back.

Imagine if instead of Scully, they had hired a CEO at Apple who truly could have been more of a mentor for Jobs and said, look, I know you're going to be the CEO eventually. Let me help you get there and show you the way. And that wasn't Scully. And so there's a sense of that lost opportunity, but the sense that in the end, we got the Steve Jobs we got at the end because of this journey that he went on and that he completed it. And that all the stories that we hear now about the bad behavior of Steve Jobs, the really bad stuff, that narrative is from when he was first at Apple and that the Steve in the latter days at Apple was the same guy, but had learned a lot and progressed. And is that true or not i

don't know but that seems to be their claim here that's the story that they're telling of a guy who learned and grew but it took him a while to find somebody to help him grow how do you feel about apple's kind of blessing now like reading this book like because it's not i mean on the whole it is so far positive about steve but it doesn't hide his problems no the i mean like i said the story they're trying to tell is that steve was somebody who has you know he had personality issues he yells at people and is uh they said he's a spoiled kid who was never told no yeah and he he his talent let him go a long way without ever hearing anybody say no and that's one of the reasons they sort of created a monster with with with this guy and it took him a long time to kind of turn that around

and and be more productive so i can see how from the perspective of Apple and from Steve's friends that they like this because it shows that he progressed as a human and was not that, I mean, far be, they talk a little bit about the fact that he denied the parentage of Lisa, his daughter, his daughter from a prior relationship to his marriage. And it's true. And it was baffling. Everybody thinks of it as, including I think his friends, as like the worst thing he ever did in his life.

But this book does point out, and they're not apologizing for it, but that was a piece of terrible behavior that he made as a 23-year-old man. I've really enjoyed – I've heard – my other book that I really enjoy is called The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. Have you read this? Yeah. It's by Alan Deutschman. I've listened to it a few times. It's fantastic, but it only goes up to a certain point. But they focus on this.

Obviously, the movie, The Pirates of Silicon Valley. Yeah. but they focus on this obviously the the movie the pirates of the confining yeah everyone focuses on this and they say it's like they everybody points to this and says this is why he is a nasty man right but he was like in his early 20s he didn't know what to do can we all are all of us going to be held to our worst behavior when we were 23 that's a that's i mean again sure if you kill somebody or something like that you should but you know and there's nobody when we were 23. That's a, that's, I mean, again, sure, if you kill somebody or something like that, you should, but, you know,

and there's nobody denying that it was ridiculous behavior. Yeah, I'm not excusing it in any way. But, you know, for the full picture of a man, he lived a lot longer, and his relationship with Lisa changed dramatically. And she lived with him and his young kids and his wife, and they had a difficult relationship. But, ooh, the wolves are coming for us, Mike.

That was a weird noise. That was a weird noise. Is that the wind? It must just be the wind. Winter is coming. Winter is coming. It does look like that out there. It does look like that out there.

So I think the reason that Apple authorized this in their own way, authorized that people talk on the record about it, who are Apple employees who knew Steve, is that they felt like it painted a fuller picture of the whole man and his journey. And I can see why that was important to them, that they don't like the narrative that Jobs was always that guy, that awful guy. And this book wants to say, yes, he was that awful guy, but he grew. And I don't know whether that's a true story or whether that's a whitewash. My feeling is that everybody's more complicated than the simplicity of a story in a book. But I can see why Apple would like this portrayal because it's more human, whereas even the Isaacson book, there's sort of like a lot of late detail from late conversations with Steve, and then there's the kind of typical story arc of Steve Jobs.

And this is, the thesis of this book really makes it different, that he did grow and progress and was somebody who was kind of broken because he never had a mentor who could really like, say, Steve, this is how you perform as an adult in business. And he never had that. i think the title of the

book kind of says it all like we're in the phase at the moment the becoming part yeah like everything leading up to creating the man who could understand what he needed to do and how he needed to run things and how can you recognize that reconcile that um childish uh guy who worked on the Mac project and started Next and has these legendary blowups? How do you reconcile that man to the sainted turtleneck guy who brings out all these products? And a lot of the coverage of Steve Jobs is like the strange contradictions of Steve Jobs. And what this book says is it's not a contradiction. It's a progression of his life. He started as that guy and became this guy.

And that wasn't just good PR. That was his growth. So it's interesting. I find little bits that are wrong here and there. Most troubling to me as the creator of SixColors.com is their reference to Apple's five-color rainbow. What? One of the ones that Stephen pointed out was like they were saying about

the iBooks came in white, plastic, or black. Yeah, and that was the MacBook. That's little. They're little things, but they drive us crazy yeah because they're these little details you said something really interesting when we talked about this about where these guys come from yeah their business their business journalists and they um so there's a there's a line about the early 90s where they say apple had become completely irrelevant and then they bring this up a few times.

Yeah, and it made me furious because that's when I became a Mac user and started working in this business was in the early 90s. And I will grant you, not the best time for Apple, and it led them to a cliff. But I think they're, one, I think they're guilty of the same compression that so many people are, which is you really want to fast forward to the end of the Apple story where Steve Jobs comes back. But, you know, under Scully, Apple motored along for quite a while doing a pretty good job and built a huge culture of Mac users. Yes, we were the seven percenters, but that was a great market to be in. The magazines were flourishing. People loved the Mac. It was an alternative platform, but it was a great market to be in. The magazines were flourishing. People loved the Mac.

It was an alternative platform, but it was a great time. And only in the mid nineties did things start to fall apart. And if you ignore the 10 years before that, I think you misstate Apple, misunderstand that story. But these guys are financial,

they're business journalists. And so, you And so we talk about things like what the Macalope writes about these days, about people covering Apple and totally missing what Apple's about. I've got to say it, I think these guys were those guys in the 90s. They considered Apple irrelevant because Apple

didn't have enough market share, because big business didn't use Apple computers. They would have the Macs in the art department. The designers would use them, but every other PC that was being sold was a Windows PC. And so from their perspective, Apple lost because the only way Apple could win that

is by having every computer in business be a Mac. And that was totally not what happened. I would argue that I think that was never a possibility, at least not since the early days. And in fact, you would say, oh, okay, so what you're really saying, if we extract this argument even further, what you're really saying is Apple should have licensed macOS

like Microsoft did and then they could have been Microsoft, but then they would have been Microsoft and they wouldn't have been Apple. So I think it's not an argument that really is very strong. And the fact that they just assume it as Apple was irrelevant is what they're really saying is Apple wasn't Windows. Apple didn't do what Microsoft did. And from a business standpoint, it's totally true.

Microsoft grew and was huge and Apple didn't. But I don't think that's irrelevant. See, I think it's irrelevant if you write for Fortune magazine. There's this one point where after saying that Apple is irrelevant because they're talking about Gates. And then Schlender says that he took a job in Tokyo because there was nothing happening in Silicon Valley anymore. It was just Microsoft and Intel just trundling along. Right. Intel just trundling along. Right.

And if that's all you're looking for is change in the big global PC industry, I guess you could say that was boring. But I think that misstates it. Also, I mean, you jump over things like the PowerBooks. The first PowerBooks, that was all under Scully, the PowerBooks. And people loved those. And those were the talk of, those were the first laptops that people really loved. That Apple, again, they weren't the first laptops at all, but they were the ones that became like, I remember there was like stories about movie executives being seen at Los Angeles area restaurants with their power books doing work. And it was this, Ooh, it's so fancy. I mean, there was a lot in there that is glossed over. So I think that's a missing piece of the Apple of the Apple story here is that it's really easy to throw, um, Scully under the bus and say his whole reign was a disaster, but

you know, there was a lot of success there of a sort. It was not the Microsoft success, but, um, the Mac, I thought, you know, it's weird to think that these guys consider the time that i became a mac user loved the mac bought a bunch of macs became a person who wrote about the mac and have them just say it was irrelevant that whole period was just a period of irrelevancy because it sure didn't feel like that to me does that hurt you a little bit well it what it brings back is it brings back the time when people would say, come on, Mac only has 10% of the market. So you are irrelevant. And the answer is, but the 10% are the people who know better.

It's the best 10%. Yeah, it's the best 10%. Absolutely. And we loved it. And it was a minority platform. And we were the ones who wanted something that wasn't the usual computer. And we loved the Mac. It's actually a really nice tidbit that the book has about how Fred Anderson, the CFO, who was brought back right as the company's about to go out of business.

One of the reasons he took the job is that he and his wife were huge Mac heads. They just loved the Mac. And they thought, like, we can get to go back to California, where they were from. And they loved Apple. And it's like there was a lot of passion for Apple. They make it seem like Apple's passion was like in 85, and then it was over, and they were a failure, and they just hung on for the next 12 years, which is just wrong. But I understand their perspective because they're business guys.

They're business journalists. And for them, there was no story there, because Bill Gates won, and Steve Jobs didn't. But in general, I do like their perspective. I do. They were there, and that helps a lot, because like I said, they have a level of understanding of

some of this material that Isaacson doesn't. This is not the story from a Mac user's perspective, but it is understanding the industry at that time in a way that Walter Isaacson doesn't because he was not interested in this industry at that time. You may be biased, but do you think there's still space for the third book? Like the book from someone from your perspective? Yes, my book.

Sure, sure. I'd like to announce I'm writing Steve Jobs. There is space for a lot of books, although I admit that, like a lot of people, I'm kind of getting Steve Jobs fatigue. Yeah, I don't need another one for like five years.

What I think I want is yeah, in ten years, I want a good book that synthesizes the reporting from these other books and tries to, with the perspective of 10 more years or 20 more years, understand this era and what Apple meant in it. And I suspect, of course, we'll get that at some point. I do think there's more to say about Apple's history. And in fact, the irony of the Steve Jobs, the Ashton Kutcher movie is that the part that I thought was the most interesting was not about Steve Jobs, but was about Apple. It was the story of Apple. Apple. It was the story of Apple. And I feel like, strangely, Steve Jobs has eclipsed the Apple story. And it goes to things like compressing his time when he was gone. There are some really great

stories about the story arc of Apple. And instead of the founding, and then you peel away with Steve to next, and then he comes back and saves the company i'd kind of like more biographies and there's some but i kind of like more of the the story arc of apple where it it meanders and then it finally catastrophically loses its way and then steve comes back like what if we stick with that character yeah i don't know a lot of what happened when steve went away because all of the books go with him. Scully and Spindler and Emilio. And again, Scully was most of that time. I mean, when I started as an intern at MacUser was when the Newton came out.

Newton was Scully's baby. So I started in this business with Scully as the CEO and I became a MacUser with Scully running Apple. So I'm not a John Scully defender by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that you cannot pretend that that era wasn't relevant in some way. And so I'd like to hear more about that. I think we've let Steve Jobs kind of overshadow this other interesting story, which is this company that did some great things and then lost its way and then

was reborn so i'm becoming more and more interested in the tim cook story because he it's going to be another great chapter isn't it like did you see he's giving his fortune away did you see this yeah other than he's going to put his nephew through college i want to know more about tim cook yeah well that's why i said about about 20 years from now or 10 years from now that we're going to be able to get the story of apple and it's going to be a much broader story it's I want to know more about Tim Cook. And, you know, depending on how things go and the way of all things, it's probably going to tell us how Apple's incredibly successful period ended and what were the things that made it end or change into becoming the great car manufacturer that we all know it as today in the year 2030. Who used to make smartphones. They used to make watches. Yeah. And before that, music players and jukeboxes.

And now they make cars. And now they make cars and hoverboards yeah because i got i think tim cook's story will be like the cat like the unbelievable rise and then the stop yeah because that's it has to like right it has to either that or it will just trans continue to transform into other things and be a different company, which is fine. It's inevitable, right? I mean, we've talked about this before. I actually think that's one of the reasons why the car thing is happening and why Google does the crazy things it does is that businesses –

Okay, so people are mortal, but businesses – spoiler alert – businesses are potentially immortal. but businesses, spoiler alert, businesses are, are potentially immortal. And the reason businesses are mortal is because they don't change and they have this natural kind of progression. And the way that you become immortal as a business, or at least extend your lifespan is by changing into something different. And businesses can do that. And, and the people at Apple and Google are very smart and they are, they, they spend a lot of time thinking about what are other things we can do to extend the life of this business by adding new business. Instead of stopping where we are and taking all this money, and then we'll all retire, and the new people will come in and not know what the hell they're doing, and that'll be the end of it. Let's look out 20 years and say, should we be making cars? Should we be making cars?

In 20 years, could we be one of the leading car manufacturers in a world of smart electric cars that drive themselves and fly, maybe? And are submarines that you can, whatever it is. And I believe they are doing that. So that's the thing. Apple's era of now will end. And that will happen whether or not there's another era beyond it. Should we take a break, do some awesome upgrades? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Should we take a break and do some awesome upgrades? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do an ASK Upgrade, as almost always,

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So thank you once again to mail route for keeping my inbox clear of spam and for being a good friend and sponsor and supporter of what we do here at upgrade and introducing me to mailbagging. Yes. Which I love dearly. I'm thinking maybe the Upgrade t-shirts should just say mailbagging. That's interesting. I wonder if MailRoute would sponsor the Upgrade t-shirt

and we could practically give them away at that point. Brought to you by. Right, so let's do some ask upgrades. So we have, at the three stories so far on Twitter, I keep hearing podcasters say definitively that no adapters come with a MacBook. Is that confirmed for sure? Jason, please break some hearts. Yes, if you look on the MacBook page, it's actually in there.

They say what's in the box. And it's the power block that goes to the wall, a USB-C cable, and a MacBook. That's it. Yep. No adapters. You have to buy them yourselves. And unfortunately, they will set you back a pretty penny. Yeah.

It does mean that the cable is attached to the little block. That's a USB-C cable. So it's detachable on either end, which is different from how they work now. And that means, yeah, so right now when you buy a MacBook Power Cable, you've got the block, and the block runs to your MagSafe. And it's just part of it. It's part of it. And this, they're connected on both ends. Like with your iPad, it's got a plug on both ends.

So you could pull it off and plug that into a battery or plug that into a USB charger, which would probably not really charge it because it wouldn't have enough if it was a USB-C connector. So it's a little more versatile that way. See, the thing that I find interesting in that way is eventually all of our wall adapters will be usbc right in theory like even the iphone ones in theory it'll be usbc to lightning right so you could just have those plugged in your house and just put the cable in that you need yes that makes it very different right and also if it detaches that could be uh like i don't that we i don't know maybe you know how firm that connection is i don't know because that could be the firm that connection is. I don't know. Because that could be the MagSafe problem.

That could be another place where you could have it break away. But if it just comes out of a wall, it might come out relatively easily. I have to say that the idea of the MagSafe on the power brick seems like a disaster to me. Yeah. Because I would knock that out all the time. And if I could get under the desk, I wouldn't want that. Right. But we'll see.

I'm still interested to see what happens with the MagSafe stuff. I didn't know that was a cable that went into the... We're going into a weird place with this, but we will come out the other side eventually. But it's going to be weird. I mean, another one of the questions that we had was about... It was somebody we actually asked last week. He was asking about iOS devices, including a standard USB cable.

He said, I was thinking about charging more than syncing, because we said, well, why do you even sync anymore? And I think this is a really weird thing that right now, if you buy a MacBook and you want to charge from a device, you'll need to buy an adapter. And what I would say is, Apple's argument would be, don't charge from a device.

Charge from the wall. Just charge from the wall. I know the wall. Just charge from the wall. I know people do charge their iPhones from their Macs, and that's fine. But I think what Apple's saying is, look, if you're somewhere where your Mac is plugged in, your phone can be plugged in. I do get the fact that if your Mac has a battery and your phone is about to die, you can actually steal power from your Mac's battery. That seems like an edge case. And at that point, you pack an adapter. You know what I think it would say is, the battery will last you all day on both devices. That would be nice.

That's the idea. Their message is, well, you don't need to do it because that lasts for 10 hours, and that lasts for 10 hours, so you're done. Right, and they feel the primary use case for charging is charging from the wall not not plugging it into a device to charge i but i i agree if apple has this mixed this mixed set of usbc and not usbc at some point they're going to need to put a usbc to lightning cable in the box of the iphone at which point everybody who doesn't have a usbc mac is going to freak out or they're going to have to offer some sort of swap program where you can come in and trade it in for one.

Or they'll sell it for $25 a piece. But it's going to be a mess. It's going to be a mess for a little while because they can't switch without... I think they will be late to switch because every existing computer is going to suddenly not connect to it. But maybe it doesn't matter if they say, say look get an adapter or just plug it into the wall and don't worry about attacking attaching it to a computer when the ipod went from firewire to usb can you remember if you got both cables in the box uh oh i mean probably because they used to include a lot in they did

they did they used the first iPod had a case. The remote that you'd get. Oh, I love the clip-on remote. That was great. That was my favorite. They used to get a dock as well. Yeah, a dock, a case. They used to get loads of stuff in the boxes.

Yeah, that got all thrown out over time. It got just smaller and smaller. But yeah, because I have an old Mac Mini that has a VGA adapter. It came in the box. You won't get that anymore. Okay, let's move on. This comes from JS Carlton. There's something about the space black Apple Watch.

It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is, none more black. By the way, this is a reference to the film This Is Spinal Tap. Which will be the next... The next Mike watches a movie it's on this laptop i will watch it i think it's i think in a couple of weeks time because next week i'm away so you have a special guest next week we do have it we have a special guest uh host joining me on next week's show i know it's going to be a good one so my plea to all the listeners is

please allow me to come back the week after i don't think i don't think our special guest is available to co-host with me every week anyway i bet it will still upset people jacob holt wants because we were talking about ipods last week right and we were laughing about the ipod lineup and jacob was honest do you do we think that ipods will ever be updated again i don't think so i think that they are a it's a legacy product now that sits a very very low part of the line i think the existing nano and shuffle can continue for a long time as what they are but it's hard to imagine uh other than if for component reasons they need to upgrade the storage or something like that but it's hard to imagine them ever being updated beyond that and apple knows how many they make and how much it's worth keeping them in the product list.

And they'll keep them on the product list as long as it's profitable for them to do so. But that doesn't cost them anything. Rethinking a product costs them. And I just don't think they're ever going to do it. I'm not even sure. I'm skeptical that the iPod Touch will ever be updated again. I don't think it will be.

Let alone the other iPods. Because the iPod Touch, we said this before, if you want a low-cost iOS, small iOS device, there's the Mac Mini. I mean, the iPad Mini 1. The original iPad Mini,

which is still an iPad 2, essentially. It's better than the iPod Touch in every way. I mean, unless you want a small device, then of course it's not. But, you know. I can see, again, and I can see people's argument, like, but, but, but, but device, then of course it's not. But, you know. I can see, again, I can see people's argument.

Like, but, but, but, but, but I use it for this. I totally get that. But from Apple's perspective, it's like it's not worth their time. It's like, okay, you might use it for that. We'll buy it then. Like, it's not going to be powerful, but it's there. And that's probably why they keep it there. Right.

And like, you know, the shuffle is there because people like to just clip it to themselves and go running. So it exists, but I cannot see any more resources going into that line unless there is some breakthrough. Some kind. It makes sense again to do it. No, because we're living in a world where you've got wireless headphones and you've got, you know, everybody wants to have their smartphone with them. them and it's harder and harder and now you could have your watch with music on it yeah so um i don't think so and not not because there aren't people who have uses for them but because apple doesn't want to spend the time to uh update them versus do new products on that note at bakery me on twitter um has asked if the watch leads to

leaving like your iphone in the bag um wireless headphones will become more important do you think that apple are going to do their own set of wireless headphones well i would have expected them to have announced it already well apple has beats and beats makes headphones so i think we're going to see those things come closer together and And I think, maybe not now, but in the fall, certainly, when they're ramping up for the holiday season, I would be shocked if Apple's product announcements don't include how Beats headphones can be used with Apple's products. Because they mention them. Like, with the MacBook, they were like, and you use Bluetooth to listen to your Beats headphones. Yeah. Like, I think, was it Shiller or was it Eddy C Bluetooth to listen with your Beats headphones. Yeah.

Like, I think, was it Schiller or was it Eddy Cudder? Make a joke about it. Yeah, I remember that. But it was serious, and they had a product shop. Of Beats headphones. Gold MacBooks, and a young girl wearing gold Beats headphones. Yeah. That is the link.

But I really expected a, when the watch came out, here are some sport headphones. Yeah, I think they're not quite there yet but i think that's coming i i think that that is just a case of they probably wanted to have it but it's not ready right right but i i think i think at this point it's less likely that it will be apple's matched headphones apple's headphone brand now is beats it may be that the earpods the next version is a set of small beats headphones yeah it's entirely possible but they'll brand they'll brand them and

say you know now we include the this is a you get a you get the beats earpods hey maybe that's where the ipod goes oh they give the beats brand to all music products yeah because it might well they want the service anyway so this is the christian would you say that the macbook pro 13 inch non-retina is worthy of the pro moniker these days what is the purpose in the lineup well the purpose is education i guess right yeah and it's the having it yeah i'm not even sure it is it is so much education since you've also got the macbook air but it's it's they already have it It's like what we said about these iPods. It already exists. It's cheaper and they, um, they can make it, they can make it very cheaply. And there is obviously some demand for it in education or business or something where they keep it around and it

has the optical drive. So if everybody wants a laptop with an optical drive they can say all right we can sell that to you and you see this i mean this is why the ipod ipad 2 stuck around for a while is because they were selling it to education and they needed to keep making it and it will this is part of apple strategy today is these ghost products that just fade away very slowly. And so why does Apple sell the iPad mini three, two, and one? I mean, that's weird. And the old iPhones that are still in the line, and this is one of those, this is a ghost product. And, you know, in three or four years, the, um, the MacBook air, there'll probably still be a 13 inch MacBook air in the product line. And we'll all say the same thing, which is why is it still there? And the is well they can sell that for 7.99 and it's non-retina and all these things but it's cheap

and it's old but it's fine that this is part of apple strategy now and this is one of the ways that they take advantage of their manufacturing is they these products as they age they get really low margins and they have particular sales channels that want them and so why not keep making them and it's no more effort for them at that point and what happens then is that something breaks like if they run out of a part or something else

complicates things and then they have to make that moment of like well do we update this or do we kill it and in most cases I think they just kill it at that point So they were talking about this in ATP a couple of weeks ago about like you know the the thought like they're saying we believed that jobs would enter the jobs area that have got rid of these but the thing is it's like those those products when they get to that point the margins are so huge yeah because you've been making them for so long the process is down all of the stuff is done is cheap to make all the parts are cheap

so from a business standpoint just it sits there it doesn't hurt anyone right it's just in the lineup right sometimes it makes the product lineup more confusing it maybe makes things more difficult for developers because they're still supporting the ipad 2 right i have a brand new ipad 2 ugh right but from a business standpoint that's that's, that helps that $75 billion in revenue. And if you're Apple, you are more comfortable keeping an old product around than creating a new product that is just cheap, cheap, cheap. Plus, you can't really create a new product. The 5C is the only example, the iPhone 5C, where they wrapped an old product in a new case and claimed that it was a new product. And the 5C did fine, but it didn't set the world on fire. And I think it reinforced their standard strategy, which is just let old tech float around and just keep cutting the price.

float around and just keep cutting the price. And, you know, it may be yesterday's model, but it's still yesterday's premium model and not yesterday's crap or today's crappy model. And so I think it's better for Apple to do it this way. Cloud Gabo on Twitter is saying about how Spotify could actually be the company to help bring podcasts to the masses. Sure. Sure. But it depends on their agreement i will yeah i have the same trepidation and i know you do that that any big player who

comes and says uh we want to revolutionize podcasting you worry that they that they're going to they're trying to be the gatekeeper and then they're going to want to put their own ads in or take the ads out or pay us a penny instead of having our ads in there, and we're not going to be able to say no, and then they control podcasting. So that's the fear of all of these. But I would love for Spotify to bring their intelligence about music to podcasts. I think there's, and that's what a bunch of other companies are trying to do too. I would love to get there. Um, I do think there's an opportunity to do that. The problem is that podcasts like this one run for an hour, an hour and a half and not for 10 minutes.

And so the fun of having Spotify and being able to have it pick music for you or Pandora or whatever is, uh, more difficult when you've got, when you're shuffling through things that are an hour and a half long. You're really only listening to one anyway, so it's not as good. I've mused before about what would be interesting is setting up a podcast network where all of your shows were like 10 minutes long and then offering them as just chopped up and remixed and you can pick your favorites. And I think that would be an interesting attempt.

I'm not sure whether it might end up just sounding like radio. Yeah. And I'm not sure people would like it. It could just be segments. But it would be really interesting if you tried something like that to chop things up and have a 10-minute segment every day instead of an hour a week and chopped in with other things and all mixed up, would that be good or would that just be radio? And I think it goes against the appeal of

podcasting, but it does feed the appeal of people wanting to discover new voices and program their own entertainment. It wouldn't be podcasting. It would be something else. But I'd been waiting for somebody to try something like that. I think it could't be podcasting it would be something else but i i you know i'd been waiting for somebody to try something like that i think it could be interesting it would just be very different from what we do a couple last quick questions uh from angus do you think the watch uh with the sports band would be suitable for running would it be too heavy and attract sweat yeah i don't think that well i don't think it'd be heavy i don't think it'll be heavy it's heavier than the other one but i don't think it would it would be heavy it's good you're gonna feel a weight because it's a watch right but it's not much heavier made to just you just get used to them right and uh you're not

gonna fall over and as for for sweat i mean the metal's not going to attack attract sweat the band um i had this conversation on the train yesterday um i really like a leather band and you know because you're you you do sweat and i like a leather band and, you know, because you're, you, you do sweat and I like a leather band, although it can damage the band over time. That's true. But I like it because it absorbs and then it will release the moisture. I hate the sports bands, the plastic bands, because they are, they are impervious to the moisture. And that means your arm just gets wetter and wetter and i hate it but that's a personal preference thing um i i'm i think sports band on a on a suffix less adjective less watch

is probably fine i don't think you know i think it's fine you're gonna get the you're gonna get the the sapphire instead of the ionics glass so it's going to be more scratch resistant but less shatter resistant yeah um but i don't know i don't think i i don't think it's a no for that i think you could you could totally do that last question today from at always breaking is the guinness in ireland better than the guinness in the u.s i would love it would be very hard to do i would love somebody to actually prove or disprove this because people say – even in the UK, they say it's better in Ireland than it is in the UK. I like stout. We talked about that on our wine and cheese and beer vertical last week. We had dinner in Dublin and I went to – at the Porter House.

So it was a local micro brew of a porter and an oyster stout i had both and then we went to a a steamy crowded irish pub after which was really fun and i had guinness there and what it reminded me is i find i think guinness is not objectionable um i think it's um it feels like it tastes better in Ireland, but honestly, you're in Ireland. There's a chance it's going to be fresher. It is going to be fresher. So that might add to it. Although I'm skeptical of how much of that is marketing versus reality in terms of beer.

I think when you're in the environment, it tastes better. But having a pint poured properly by somebody who's been trained in how you pour Guinness, it's part of the experience. If you isolated it and you were in a white room somewhere and you were just doing a taste test, I'm not sure it would taste any different. But then you're in this steamy pub with Irish people

all around you and it's one in the morning and you've got a Guinness and you're sitting at a battered wooden bar on a stool talking to a couple of friends um of course it tastes better that said and i again i'm going to get drummed out of ireland for saying this guinness is fine it is a mass-produced stout having those micro brews and at the porterhouse those were so good so like i feel like there are better there are better stouts available even in ireland than guinness but guinness is fine it reminds me of drinking milk

it's like slightly alcoholic milk it's just smooth and nice and you're in ireland and you know it's so it's good and and uh it is better in ireland always breaking uh it's just i'm unclear whether the taste is not being affected by all the other atmosphere that goes with it. It's nicer to enjoy an island. Yeah, and they do train the barman to pour it properly. They let the bubbles go out of it. They give it a weight. They sit there and they pour out a bunch of them as the orders are coming in.

And then they go back and they do a second pour to get the head right on the top. And in other places, there are a lot of bartenders who have no idea how to do stout so what i found really interesting in that pub that we were in is it didn't take us long to have the guinness because he had just had glasses on the go yeah he was a guinness assembly line yeah they were just ready and just settling because usually you go to a bar they do and even if they do it they let it settle for a bit and they finish it off but it's still not the right time I assume

but yeah because there was the whole time that we were at the bar there was always like four or five glasses like three quarters full yeah just getting

just letting the bubbles come out and then they would add it on top and hand it out and there's a proper amount and everything so that's part of it I think

because they know how to pour Guinness in Ireland so that's part of the charm too so They know how to pour Guinness in Ireland. So that's part of the charm too. So that's about it for this week's episode. It's been a pleasure doing podcasts right across the way from you. Hopefully we'll

do this maybe at WWDC. Yeah, I'm going to miss not only will I miss the show next week, I'll miss not doing it in person. It's nice. I like it. And I hope that it's enjoyable to listen to. I think it does bring a difference in the in the show that i hope people have enjoyed for these couple of weeks so if you've hated these last couple of weeks rest assured we'll be back next week we'll have a guest and then we'll be back to the the long distance skype conversations

of jason and mike yeah but then i'm away again for one more week i know and then and then we've got uh we've got another special guest hosting with me that week too but yeah exciting couple of weeks. But, yeah, exciting stuff over the next couple of weeks. Lots of interesting things happening on Upgrade that I think you'll enjoy. If you want to find our show notes for this week, you can go to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 29. Thanks again to our sponsors this week, Linda, Bushel, and MailRoute. If you want to find us online, there's a couple of ways you can do that. Mr. Jason Snell is at jsnell, J-S-N-E-L- e double l on twitter and he is the editor-in-chief of sixcolors.com and i am at i mike i m y k e on twitter and this show is part of the glorious relay fm and you can find all of our shows over

relay.fm until next week well for you thanks so much for listening. Bye-bye. Hello, mate. This is a podcast. This is a podcast. This is a podcast. I think Stephen pointed this out to us, right? It's like... Winter is coming. Ah, okay.